


Sweet as Honey

by BlueBloodBlueHeart



Category: Final Space (Cartoon)
Genre: Alien Culture, Alien Planet, Alien Plants, Confessions, Festivals, First Kiss, Gift Giving, Gifts, Love Confessions, M/M, Plants, farmers market
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:34:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22144168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueBloodBlueHeart/pseuds/BlueBloodBlueHeart
Summary: While waiting to refuel the ship Gary and Avocato decide to check out a planets festival celebrating the bloom of a special kind of tree, they spend the day walking around a park and checking out various stalls at a small market. Will Gary's unconfessed feelings for Avocato get in the way of things?
Relationships: Avocato/Gary Goodspeed
Comments: 9
Kudos: 97





	Sweet as Honey

**Author's Note:**

> Wowie! My first fic for Final Space, I really had a lot of fun writing it so I hope you all like reading it! If you do be sure to leave a kudos and a comment!

It was just supposed to be a quick ‘grab fuel and then get going’ stop on a planet. Somehow it turned into Lil’ Cato, Ash and Fox going to play at a nearby arcade that according to H.U.E _Star Travel Online_ said was one of the best in this quadrant of the galaxy. After that Quinn quickly made an excuse for her, H.U.E, Sheryl and Mooncake to check out a nearby bizarre.  
“I don’t think they’re coming back anytime soon.” Avocato huffed once A.V.A informed them that their fuel tank was full again.  
“I don’t think so either,” Gary agreed, leaning up against the crimson light and looking up at the purple sky overhead, “you wanna go do something?”  
“Like what?” Gary ran a hand down his face at Avocatos words.  
“I don’t freaking know, I figured you would have some idea. You’re more well versed in space culture than I am.” Gary huffed, looking around at the town they had stopped at and the large variety of alien species that milled about.  
“ _More well versed_ huh? Great grammar there Gary.” Avocato chuckled, completely ignoring Gary’s statement.  
“You want someone good at words? Talk with Quinn, but for now? You’re stuck with my buddy and you’re the one who has to suffer with my bad grammar.” Gary shoved a finger in Avocato’s face, which Avocato simply pushed to the side.  
“Calm down baby, I wasn’t trying to get you riled up. Just let me think for a bit so I can figure out what we should do.” Avocato stepped away to get a quick look at the surroundings, meanwhile Gary was glued to the spot. Ever since he had discovered his feelings for Avocato ran deeper than friendship it was like every little thing got Gary flustered. Avocato calling him _baby_ was very much high on the list of things Avocato did that got Gary riled up. After a moment to get his head together Gary walked over to where Avocato was talking with an alien that looked to be the same species as Tribore.  
“Yes, it’s just down there,” the alien pointed down the road, “there’s a big sign. Can’t miss it.”  
“Thanks man,” Avocato turned to Gary as the alien walked away to do whatever they were doing, “up for walking around a park? Apparently we’re here just in time for the blossom of the honey-cotton trees. There’s a farmers market set up there as well.” Avocato explained to Gary, who felt like his brain was malfunctioning. _A walk around a park? But that’s like a date thing. Oh lord._  
“Honey-cotton trees?” Was what Gary managed to spit out after he realized Avocato had stopped talking and was looking at him expectantly.  
“They have small blossoms on them that look like cotton but they’re edible and taste like honey,” Avocato said, walking past Gary in the direction the alien had pointed. Gary followed at Avocato’s side, “they taste like that because there’s a species of bee’s that build a home in the hollow trunk of the tree and the honey kind of gets absorbed into the bark and goes into the flowers.”  
“And a farmers market too? Like a normal one or an alien one?” Avocato just smiled.  
“I’m pretty sure a farmers market is a farmers market everywhere Gary.” Soon enough a big sign came into view that read _Honey Park_.  
“Nah, I’ve encountered a few farmers markets that were very far from normal farmers markets.” Gary shuddered at the memory, there had been a lot of… blood for a farmers market.  
“Well let’s hope this place isn’t like those farmers markets.”  
“I could not agree more.”

The park was actually very pretty, flower beds lining the walkways. It was pretty busy but not the overwhelming kind. Like on a very sunny day at a park, lots of kids and adults watching them on picnics, not the kind of busy like the best day of the summer and you go to the beach and everyone else had the same idea. All the walks ways lead to a central plaza where a bunch of stalls were set up selling a variety of handmade crafts and things like jams and fruits.  
“What do you want to do first?” Avocato asked once they reached the middle of the market.  
“I don’t know about you but I very much saw some cool little things in the shops and wanna check them out.” Gary admitted, looking around at all the stalls that surrounded them.  
“Lead on then,” Avocato said with a wave of his arm. With a smile Gary turned and started to look at the little trinkets and items in the small shops. At one there were little quilted coasters with various flowers on them, at the next there was homemade jams, another had wood carvings, then there was one with water color paintings. One in particular held Gary’s interest.  
“Oh my crap!” He whispered, looking at the rack that held up lots of clay keychains in the forms of various bugs. There between a ladybug and a bee was a familiar looking green bug.  
“What is it Gary?” Avocato noticed the extreme reaction from his friend and tried to find what had been the cause.  
“That key chain! It’s the same species as Mooncake- I mean my original Mooncake. The one my dad gave me,” Gary quickly patted down his pockets for his wallet but came up empty, “crap! I left my wallet on the ship.” Gary desperately needed the keychain, he didn’t have keys but he would get some _specifically_ for this keychain. The stall attendant seemed to notice Gary’s caught attention and came over with a smile.  
“Ah, the luna moth. It came from the planet Earth. A lot of my wares did actually. Would you be interested in purchasing any of them?” The attendant asked, Gary shook his head sadly.  
“No sorry, I forgot my wallet. How do you know so much about Earth bugs?” Gary found it strange and quite coincidental an alien shop would have so many Earth creatures.  
“Ah my husband is human. He was an entomologist, he was off planet when the planet was destroyed luckily. He still has a lot of books detailing all the bugs so I like to create ones from the books. It’s like a memorium.” Gary felt his heart pang at the reminder of the loss of the planet. He had hardly thought about it while they had been attempting to get Quinn back.  
“Yeah, it’s nice. Have a nice day. Gary said with a wave as he moved to the next stall.  
“Have a happy Honey Harvest.” The attendant said with a smile. Gary took a breath and tried to shove away the bad thoughts, it was a nice day and he was going to enjoy it God damnit. The next stall had hand made ceramics, they were certainly pretty but Gary couldn’t imagine they would last long on the Crimson Light. He was a couple stalls along when a wonderful smell caught his nose, he looked around and realized that there was a street meat cart a few feet away. A sign next to it declared a special ‘honey street meat’ just for the blooming of the trees.  
“Oo Avocato, you got your wallet on you?” Gary asked, turning to where he _thought_ Avocato would be but found that no one was next to him. He spun around and realized that he had lost Avocato, “Avocato!?” Gary called out, trying to pick his friend out of the crowd. A hand on his shoulder made him jump and wheel around, coming face to face with the face he had been looking for, “what the frig Avocato! You scared the crap outta me, I nearly killed you.” Avocato laughed at Gary’s words.  
“I’d like to see you try. Now what was it you were wanting my wallet for?”  
“So you heard that and decided to stay hidden from me for a little longer?”  
“I didn’t hear anything before you called out my name. I just assumed the only reason you’d want me was for my money.”  
“I care about more than just your money Avocato!” Gary gasped in mock offense, placing a hand on his chest and shooting Avocato with his best disbelieving look.  
“So you surely would be fine if I got myself some street meat and didn’t get you anything?” Avocato said with a smirk and a quirk to one of his eyebrows.  
“I said I care about more than just your money, not that I didn’t care about your money.”  
“Thought so.”

The gardens around the market were beautiful, after they had gotten their food Gary and Avocato went walking around the gardens and Gary was in awe at how beautiful it was. An alien looking bee species fluttered around all the equally alien looking plants, collecting pollen for their nectar. As they walked around they passed a few other people on the paths, it was mostly couples and families. It made Gary feel painfully aware of how weird it was for two _friends_ to be walking around. The thought quickly fell to the back of Gary’s mind as Avocato slipped his paw into Gary’s hand.  
“Close your eyes.” Avocato said and whoo boy was it hot outside or was it just Gary? Even though he felt like his brain was malfunctioning Gary obeyed and closed his eyes. Once Avocato was sure Gary’s eyes were closed the paw that was in Gary’s hand was tugging him forward.  
“If I trip I’m blaming you okay?” Gary tried to feign disinterest in the situation but all he could focus on was the way Avocato’s paw seemed to fit so well in his hand.  
“You won’t trip. It’s just a little further anyways.” Avocato assured him.  
“When did you become an expert in this planet?”  
“When I disappeared for a moment and looked at a map of the park.” There wasn’t much Gary could say to that, it definitely checked out. He suddenly realized that they weren’t on the paved walkway anymore, it still seemed like a worn path without grass under foot but the ground was a bit more cushioned.  
“Oh, uh okay. Can I open my eyes yet?”  
“No, just a few more moments.” Avocato stopped bringing him further and Gary took it as a cue to drop Avocato’s hand. Once his hand was free Avocato grabbed Gary by the shoulder and twisted him a little bit to the left.  
“Any chance I can open my eyes yet?” Gary so badly wanted to peek open his eyes but he kept them closed, trusting Avocato.  
“Okay, now you can.” Gary opened his eyes and was immediately breathless. The scene around him was beautiful. He was surrounded on all sides by trees, ones he could only assume were the Honey-Cotton trees from the sight of the bees buzzing all around the yellow tendrils that held small, slightly paler yellow clumps on them. They looked very similar to willow trees on Earth, looking past the cotton and yellow color. He noticed that at the foot of one of the trees was a bench with a plaque on it and what looked like a dozen carvings in it. Gary stepped closer until he could read it, _These trees are very fragile. Please help keep this park healthy. If you want to carve something do so on the bench_. It was a nice sentiment, Gary was surprised that a simple plaque worked so well. On Earth if people saw that they would deliberately not listen.  
“Avocato this place is beautiful. Was this really on the map?” Gary turned to face Avocato, who had stayed silent the whole time Gary had been taking things in.  
“No, the shop keep at the keychain place told me about it. They, er, assumed we were together.” Avocato seemed a bit flustered at the idea, his eyes looking down at the ground as he said it. Gary felt his face heat up at the thought.  
“Oh.” Was all he managed to get out, though a million thoughts were going through his head. Most especially _holy crap_.  
“I still figured it would be nice to check it out. It definitely seems worth it.” Avocato walked past Gary and took a seat on the bench, resting his head back and looking up at all the branches overhead and the sky that peaked between them. Gary followed his lead and sat beside him, taking the chance to look at Avocato and take in just how handsome the Ventrexian was.  
“It was _definitely_ worth it. It’s beautiful.” Gary breathed, his eyes glued on his friend.  
“Oh! I almost forgot.” Avocato lifted up his head and Gary nearly got whiplash looking away before he was caught. He returned his attention to Avocato though when he realized his friend was pulling something out of his pocket. Gary gasped when he realized it was the key chain he had been looking at earlier.  
“Avocato… you didn’t have to man, really.” Gary watched as Avocato held the small trinket out on the palm of his paw, too hesitant to grab it yet.  
“I know man, I just figured it’d be a start at paying you back for everything you’ve done for me.” With a smile glued to his face Gary reached out and took the keychain from Avocato’s paw, feeling a little shudder when his hand brushed Avocato’s paw.  
“Thank you. So much.” Gary couldn’t help himself and he lunged forward and caught Avocato in a hug. After a moment Avocato hugged him back.  
“I should be the one saying that to you.” Was all Avocato said. They stayed like that for a moment before finally Garry let go.  
“Alright, now I don’t know about you but I kinda wanna carve my name in this bench.” Gary said, putting the keychain into his coat pocket. Avocato pulled a pocket knife out of the pouch on his leg.  
“Ohoho this is one of the reasons why you’re so amazing Avocato.”  
“Amazing?” Avocato paused for a second, the word seemed to trip him up. Gary realized that the word might have been a bit extreme for friends but knew there was no taking it back and tried to just roll with it.  
“Yeah man, you’re pretty fricken amazing.”  
“You are too. Now are we just going for initials or you want full Gary and Avocato?”  
“Gary and Avocato my man, now gimme the knife.” Gary demanded, grabbing the knife as Avocato tossed it to him.  
“All yours captain.” _Ooo Gary liked Avocato calling him_ that. Pressing that to the back of his mind for further processing later Gary started to carved his name into the bench, adding a little plus sign after and handing the knife back to Avocato.  
“There we go.” Avocato said with a satisfied smirk as he finished carving out the last of his name. Since they were already kneeling on the ground Gary decided to sit with his back resting against the bench, Avocato following suit.  
“Gary and Avocato, together forever!” Gary said with a happy grin, though once his brain caught back up to him he realized the more-than-friends implications that his words carried, “I didn’t mean it like that I just meant like friends, like bro’s, like brofriends-”  
“Gary,” Avocato’s tone was unreadable, though it still held a kind of seriousness to it that gave Gary pause, “can I ask you something?” Gary swallowed, he didn’t like the sound of that.  
“Sure.” He said as evenly as possible, inside his mind was pure screaming and he prayed that Avocato couldn’t tell.  
“How come you and Quinn haven’t… you know. Gotten together? I mean you spent five years sending daily videos to her, you went through hell and back to save her and… I haven’t exactly seen you and her get all lovey dovey at all like I figured you would.” That was _definitely_ not what Gary had been expecting to hear. He had expected a ‘why are you acting so weird’ or maybe a ‘is there something you’re not telling me’ but this completely blindsided Gary.  
“Well… when she first got back we… tried. But we both realized something wasn’t right. I realized that I loved her, but not in the way I thought I did or maybe used to. We decided to just stay friends and… yeah.” Gary hadn’t told anyone yet, figured it wasn’t important enough. He didn’t realize that his friends might actually be a bit invested in his love life.  
“I guess that makes sense, but how did you realize? If you thought for so long you loved her what changed.” And oh if Gary were a braver man he would have said ’ But that was very cheesy and Gary was not a braver man. So instead he took the cowards way out and said.  
“I realized I loved someone else.” And that was partially true. The only reason it wasn’t fully the truth is because calling Avocato just ‘someone’ made it seem like Gary had fallen in love with a stranger. In some ways Avocato still was a stranger to Gary, it’s not like they knew everything about each other, but he still trusted Avocato with his life.  
“Who?” Wow Avocato was making it really hard for him to not tell Avocato the truth, to just be like ‘it’s you, you big stupid idiot’ and pull him in close and kiss him and oh lord that sounded nice but even though he tried to act all cool and confident Gary knew deep down he was definitely not suave enough to pull off a move like that.  
“Why’s it so important?” Gary tried to keep the edge out of his voice but he couldn’t help it, he wasn’t ready to risk the very real chance of Avocato denying him and it ruining their friendship. They were dad’s! What would it do to Little Cato? Oh crap! It would be just like going through a divorce. Gary didn’t want Little Cato to have to deal with that.  
“It’s not, I’m just curious,” Avocato said simply, “is there a reason you don’t want me to know?”  
“No it’s just-” Avocato gasped, though a smile hung on his face.  
“Is it Clarence? Is that why you don’t want to tell me? I don’t think we can be friends anymore if it’s Clarence.” Gary laughed and shoved Avocato away.  
“I don’t think I could live with myself if I liked Clarence.”  
“Who is it then?” Avocato pressed.  
“I’m not telling you!”  
“If you don’t tell me I’ll keep guessing and I’ll get it right eventually. Is it Tribore? ‘Cause they’ve already taken an interest in themselves.”  
“It’s not Tribore, and believe me I already know.”  
“Is it… Bolo?”  
“Bolo? Really?”  
“I don’t know man, I don’t wanna get too outrageous.”  
“And Bolo isn’t outrageous? I mean you haven’t even said yourself.”  
“Well then, is it me?” Gary froze. _Oh crap_. He really backed himself into a corner didn’t he?  
“I just said you as an example of someone that wasn’t totally outrageous for me to like, I wasn’t implying it was you.”  
“But it’s not outrageous for you to like me?” Gary could have sworn there was a little bit of hope in Avocato’s voice but it was hard to tell.  
“Okay fine. Yes I like you. Congrats you have won a brand new car and get to tease me about it for the rest of forever if you don’t hate me.” Gary curled in on himself, resting his arms on his knees and resting his head on top of his arms.  
“Why would I hate you?” Avocato’s paw was warm against Gary’s shoulder and even though he wanted to shake it off he let it stay there, it was grounding and he was pretty relieved to hear Avocato didn’t hate him.  
“I dunno, now things are gonna be weird between us and it’s all my fault for not being able to keep my stupid feelings in check. That was enough for some people to hate me.”  
“First, I could never hate you Gary. Even if you went and joined the Lord Commanders side. I could never hate you. And second, things aren’t gonna be awkward between us now unless you want them to be because I’m in the same boat as you.” Gary looked over at Avocato with a tilt to his head.  
“What do you mean same boat? We live on a ship. A spaceship, so that doesn’t even make sense.” Avocato face palmed, unbelieving that he had tolerated someone so stupid for so long.  
“I meant in the figurative sense Gary, not literally. Do I really gotta spell it out for you?”  
“That would be appreciated yes.” Gary nodded. Avocato sighed, not having the strength to explain it he grabbed the front of Gary’s shirt and pulled him in close, pressing their lips together and hoping that would be enough to get his point across. As they pulled a part Gary tried to follow Avocato and but Avocato pushed him away.  
“You get it now?” Gary’s face was flushed, his eyes half lidded and he desperately wanted more.  
“I think… I think you gotta do it again. I don’t fully get it yet.” Gary said, Avocato rolled his eyes but leaned back in to kiss Gary again.

“Gary? Where are you and Avocato? We’ve been waiting for like half an hour ready to go.” Quinn’s voice over the com pulled Gary back to reality.  
“We went to a nearby park, we’ll be back soon though.” Gary promised, closing the communicator. Once he stood up he reached down to help Avocato up before brushing the dirt off his pants.  
“Oh! Before we go,” Gary slid his hand over one of the long willowy branches of the trees and plucked off two of the cotton like blossoms. He handed one to Avocato and then put one in his mouth. It tasted _amazing_. It definitely tasted like honey but it also had an unusually sweet tinge to it and it melted in his mouth like cotton candy, “oh lord these are good.” Gary said, carefully grabbing another one and putting it in his mouth.  
“Should we take some back for the others?” Avocato asked, following Gary’s lead and grabbing another one.  
“Nah, we’ll let this be just our thing.” Not wanting to over harvest the plants Gary decided to stop after the second one and lead the way out of the alcove and back onto the solid path.  
“Sounds good to me baby.”


End file.
